End all U.S. military aid to Colombia, and close the U.S. military bases

Repeal the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade agreement

End the Repression of the Agrarian, Labor and Popular Movements!

Free Hubert Ballesteros; unionist, peasant rights and peace activist!

Support negotiations with Colombian popular movements

Stop the exploitation of Colombian human and natural resources by U.S. corporations, including Chiquita, Drummond, and Monsanto

Colombia has suffered from mass repression, poverty, and displacement, among other things, for many years but the resistance has grown and unified. After a long peasant movement in Catatumbo this year, popular sectors of the country called for a general strike on August 19. The movement grew nationwide and many organizations participated, making it the largest mass movement in the country in many years. It is still in process and some of the demands are being negotiated with the government at this moment.

It is important to support the Colombian mass movement here in the U.S. The US has had an infamous role in supporting repressive forces in Colombia in order to make way for the large US corporations, the maquiladoras, mining, banking, etc. They want Colombia to be the right wing trampoline for control and intervention in the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean by building a strong right wing government.

We need to become informed of the role of the US in Colombia and Latin America, support resistance movements and show the world that the resistance to US imperialism is everywhere. Join our demonstration in San Francisco.The movement in Colombia has issued a worldwide call to progressives, unionists and justice loving people everywhere to support the peace process in Colombia.

Press Conference and Rally Demand that Police Review Commission to hold Special Hearing into the Death Of Kayla Moore.

According to a detailed report just released by a People’s Investigation, the in-custody death of Xavier Christopher Moore never should have happened. A coalition of groups and individuals will convene in front of the Police Review Commission offices on Wednesday October 16th at 4pm to submit the necessary signatures to administratively compel the Police Review Commission to hold a special hearing. Our goal is to present the report to the Commission and allow members of the public to express their concerns. I think the report is eye opening and extremely accurate in terms of what is going on with mental health services in Berkeley.

“The lack of those services means that police are the first responders to people in mental health crisis and they are not trained for these situations,” said Maria Moore, sister to Kayla Moore. “Our family is completely in the dark regarding what the city intends to do about this situation. We hope that the report and special hearing will act as a catalyst for the PRC and the City Council to take action.”

Although the PRC maintains that it began an investigation in March, no findings have been released or updates on their investigation made public. Berkeley Copwatch convened a variety of individuals and sources to find out what actually happened to Xavier Moore, also known as Kayla, when police entered her home on February 13th 2013. The People’s Investigation directly interviews witnesses and reviews documents in order to make a honest appraisal of a particular event and provide findings to the community. After a thorough examination of witness statements, police policies, mental health budgets, police reports, after interviewing Moore’s neighbors and family members, the People’s Investigation has reason to believe that, in addition to poor judgment and insufficient training of individual officers, there is a lack of city services, funding and policies about how to humanely provide emergency mental health services to the people of Berkeley.

The reports identifies these as factors that contributed to her death. The city of Berkeley has slashed the budget for mental health Crisis and Assessment in half since 2011. People in crisis are treated like criminals instead of patients. The Berkeley Police Association repeated their calls for tasers in response to a recent episode involving a mentally ill man. “Are tasers really going to be the way that Berkeley provides mental health care? It is time that our city comes to terms with the fact that people are dying because we don’t provide adequate mental health services,” said Andrea Prichett of Berkeley Copwatch.

*He signed SB 4, which will frack up CA
*He supports the Delta tunnels diverting water to Big Ag and Big Oil
*He refuses to reject REDD carbon credits, which will devastate indigenous communities around the world.

On Oct. 17, Governor Jerry Brown is being given the Right Stuff environmental award by the Blue Green Alliance. Brown just gutted and signed SB4 which will ramp up fracking in the state. He has declared war on CEQA, the environmental review law that is our last resort against polluters. And he is pushing the $54 billion Orwellian named Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) known as the twin tunnels. This is really a corporate water grab for Big Ag and Big Oil that will actually destroy a valuable ecosystem, the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas. Also, Brown’s Air Resources Board has not ruled out using REDD credits in its carbon trading scheme. These credits are having disastrous effects on indigenous communities around the world. We need to show him that his record cannot be green washed by even the most well meaning organizations and that we demand a ban on fracking, the strengthening not gutting of CEQA and the withdrawal of the twin tunnels plan.

Meet on the street in front of the hotel. A smaller group will be formed to stand at the entrance to the parking lot.

Michelle Alexander is breaking the silence about racial injustice in the American legal system. In her book, The New Jim Crow, she explores the cultural biases that still exist, and how segregation has been replaced by mass incarceration. Currently there are more African Americans in prison than were enslaved in 1850. She blames the drug war for many of these, as people are then labeled as felons and stuck in an endless cycle of discrimination. How can they improve their lives when they can’t get a job, housing, or health benefits? This acclaimed civil rights lawyer explores the myths surrounding our criminal justice system from a racial and ethical standpoint, and offers solutions for combating this epidemic.

Michelle Alexander is a highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, advocate, and legal scholar who currently holds a joint appointment at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity and the Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University. Prior to joining the Kirwan Institute, Professor Alexander was an associate professor of law at Stanford Law School, where she directed the civil rights clinics.

In 2005, she won a Soros Justice Fellowship, which supported the writing of her first book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (The New Press, 2010). The book has been featured on national radio and television media outlets, including NPR, The Bill Moyers Journal, The Tavis Smiley Show, C-Span Washington Journal, among others. The New Jim Crow challenges the conventional wisdom that with the election of Barack Obama as president, our nation has “triumphed over race.” Alexander argues that the sudden and dramatic mass incarceration of African American men, primarily through the War on Drugs, has created a new racial under-caste-a group of people defined largely by race that is subject to legalized discrimination, scorn, and social exclusion. Alexander challenges the civil rights community, and all of us, to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America.

For several years, Professor Alexander served as the Director of the Racial Justice Project for the ACLU of Northern California, where she helped to lead a national campaign against racial profiling by law enforcement. She is a graduate of Stanford Law School and Vanderbilt University. Following law school, she clerked for Justice Harry A. Blackmun on the United States Supreme Court, and for Chief Judge Abner Mikva on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Net proceeds from this event will go to the California Institute of Integral Studies Arc of Justice Bachelor of Arts Completion Scholarship Fund for formerly incarcerated students.

There was a successful picket line this morning called by striking members of ATU 1555 (with supporters from other unions and TWSC ) Members of ILWU 10 honored the picket line and refused to cross. The action targeted that facility.
However shortly before the picket line ended this morning a High ranking OPD cop (who identified himself as Chief of Operations) falsely stated that any picket line in the entrance of the Berths was ”illegal” – that the only thing he would permit would have to be on the side of the driveway or across the street.

The workers refused his ”request” plan to have a genuine picket line once again beginning at 5 pm .
All supporters of both the BART workers strike and the democratic right to picket are urged to participate.

United Nations special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Juan Mendez will engage with families of incarcerated prisoners in solitary confinement, students, faculty, and advocates/allies to explore: Is solitary confinement as practiced by the California Department of Corrections cruel punishment and torture?

This unofficial visit by Mr. Mendez, who has spoken out publicly about the use of solitary confinement in California prisons, presents an opportunity to engage all campus and community in a dialogue around the use of solitary confinement in our state’s prisons. While prisoners have suspended their historic hunger strike—which spanned 60 days in July and August 2013—communities continue to challenge solitary confinement as torture.

The Great 1970 Postal Strike, which shut down the mail system throughout the United States for the better part of a week.

This biggest Wildcat Strike in US history resulted in big gains for postal workers – from poverty-level job to a decent job. What were the conditions that gave rise to the strike? What are the lessons for today? Talk by postal union activist David Welsh, and a short film about the 1970 Postal Strike.

BRING:
A blanket or tarp to lie down on while we await the helicopter. Water to drink. All of your friends and family (friendly dogs are also welcomed). October weather is usually great, but you never know. Check the forecast and dress appropriately. (CAUTION: This forecast is for “inland” San Francisco. Conditions at Ocean Beach can be quite a bit colder and breezier.)

THE BATTLE FOR OSCAR GRANT PLAZA is a short documentary by Jacob Crawford about how the City of Oakland and its Police tried to shut down the budding “Occupy Wall Street” movement, turning downtown Oakland into a teargas filled war zone and injuring numerous people. Police video obtained in discovery in the National Lawyers Guild’s successful lawsuit and interviews with activists and journalists about their experiences, tell the real story of the disastrous Fall, 2011, police actions that pushed the troubled OPD to the brink of federal receivership. Co-produced by Dave Id, Indybay.org.

MANUFACTURING GUILT is a short film that appears as a Bonus Feature on our dvd MUMIA: LONG DISTANCE REVOLUTIONARY (www.firstrunfeatures.com/mumiadvd.html). The short takes on the colossus of Abu-Jamal’s contentious case, distilling a mountain of evidence and years of oft-repeated falsehoods to the most fundamental elements of police and prosecutorial misconduct that illustrate a clear and conscious effort to frame Mumia Abu-Jamal for the murder of patrolman Daniel Faulkner. Based on the actual record of investigations and court filings from 1995 to 2003 – evidence denied by the courts and ignored in the press – MANUFACTURING GUILT cuts through the years of absurdities and overt racism to produce a clear picture of how Abu-Jamal’s guilt was manufactured and his innocence suppressed beginning only moments after he and Faulkner were found shot in the early morning hours of December 9th, 1981. This historic and courageous film is the perfect companion to Long Distance Revolutionary – a film that is unequivocal in its force regarding Abu-Jamal’s innocence.

The films will be followed by a discussion with, among others, Adam & Jeralynn Blueford, parents of Alan Blueford.

Our weekly open meeting for members and supporters to discuss the weeks tasks and projects. Come get plugged into ongoing housing defense work! We have abundant and varied work for all folks in any number of meaningful projects.

Our weekly open meeting for members and supporters to discuss the week’s tasks and projects. Come get plugged into ongoing housing defense work! We have abundant and varied work for all folks in any number of meaningful projects.

Port Truck Drivers have self organized and voted to shut down the port of Oakland on Monday morning at 5am! Solidarity requested! Support these workers who have been taking it on the chin and are fighting back!

From an email:

Yesterday a group of about 100 Port truck drivers voted unanimously to picket/strike/protest/shutdown the port on Monday morning at 5am.

IMPORTANT LOGISTICS INFORMATION: There is parking on the Port at 7th and Adeline. Middle harbor park parking lot will be locked until daybreak. There are carpools from the Northwest corner of West Oakland BART (you can ride the bus there or park for free in the lot). Carpool drivers can be identified by the flashing light on their dashboard when they pull up to pick up riders. They will be driving people from the parking lot directly to the SSA terminal.

Please wear warm clothes! It is very cold in the mornings on the Port!

The NLG hotline will be up tomorrow! Please write the number on yourself in permanent marker! (415)285-1011

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